Friday, September 28, 2012

Vowel Be Darned

I stopped at the bank today and noticed round stickers all over the branch that asked the following question:


Of course there is something missing ... vowels. But what do missing vowels have to do with banking? I asked the teller and she directed me to a brochure about an identity alert benefit that the bank offers.

The brochure is titled as shown above and goes on to read:

Imagine having your identity stolen without even knowing it happened. Help safeguard you and your family with _____ _____Identity Alert Premium.

I get the correlation between stolen and missing items; however, I do not see any relation between missing vowels and stolen identity. Furthermore, I'm sure that an individual could have his or her identity stolen without knowing it happened; however, I have a hard time believing that any individual would read this copy and not know that the vowels are missing.

The semantic/pragmatic theme of this campaign is a stretch in my opinion.

As long as I am nitpicking, there is something else amiss with the copy too. The second sentence is a command with the implied subject "you" so it should really read "help safeguard 'yourself' and your family..."




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